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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23430649">Bread and Water</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelma_throwaway/pseuds/thelma_throwaway'>thelma_throwaway</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Firefly, Serenity (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Crumbs, Defining Moments, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Post-Miranda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:35:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,620</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23430649</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelma_throwaway/pseuds/thelma_throwaway</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If he was a reading man he’d be able to see what that spelled. But he’s not.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(moments from 'Firefly' and 'Serenity')</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jayne Cobb &amp; River Tam</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bread and Water</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>content note: implied violence, canon character death, minor gore, discussion of death, implied self-harm thoughts</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She steals a slice of bread off his plate. The darting of her hand, the sweet little smile she gives him when he turns in disbelief-- if he was a reading man he’d be able to see what that spelled. But he’s not.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>River can hear the stars sing, taste a person’s true thought, calculate the future based on the twitch of an atom. Though sometimes she does get the numbers wrong. She’s measuring the degree of his knee from her’s, the windspeed of his breath leaving his chest. He’s reaching for another slice of bread.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re a right mischievous little flea,” he says, half grinning. Jayne’s not uncharmed by her clear eyed giddiness, not unmoved by the scene they’d interrupted at Jiangyin. The girl trussed over a bed of sticks, her brother choosing fire over failure. He doesn’t need any extra powers to know the look of a man resigned to a proud death. It made him like the odd little pair just a bit--- a fearful love of family was something he could relate to. She doesn’t reply, just takes a bite, waggles an eyebrow and turns away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Mal orders them all to split up on the transports and leave him with the boat, he swears he feels her grab his shoulder hard but she hasn’t moved at all under Innara’s fur coat. Just her eyes, sliding away from him at the last moment. But he’d felt her palm, cold and firm, each fingertip flexed against his collar bone. He doesn’t think of her as they cruise into the black, and she doesn’t think of him. She can’t keep herself from staring in wonder at the infinite expanse running in each direction, the shrinking decimal of chance they’ll be saved contracting the longer she stares, the farther her gaze fixes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Behind her Simon tends to Zoe with the deep focus of a man in peril. After a few hours of listening to his wife’s shallow breaths Wash flicks on autopilot.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey </span>
  <em>
    <span>meimei,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” he says softly to River as he approaches, placing a reassuring hand on her arm. “I need you to help me out.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s River who turns them around, who hails the other shuttle. Jayne’s attention flickers at the sound of her voice. She sounds young, brittle. Shouldn’t be flying a ship and definitely shouldn’t be giving orders. Then Zoe gets on the comm, shaking mad, “We’re going back.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It takes no time at all for him to betray them. She smells it coming, he stinks of oily sweat and fear. Even before she’d cut him, he was at the end of his patience and looking for a tidy win all to himself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Afterwards he thinks about the way she’d rolled her eyes at him with a platoon of guns pointed at her head. It’s hard to reconcile the stitched up picture of her brain the doctor had found on Ariel with her barefoot dancing and little girl games and the miles and miles of words she strings together like beads on a bracelet all day long. But maybe it’s the way she’s keeping herself all clasped together.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>She watches the captain threaten him through the airlock from a secret little nook in the cargo hold. She’s more disappointed than anything-- she’d thought perhaps he’d have the fortitude to deny his baser instincts. Anyone in the crew had an objective reason to turn them in, though most were polite enough not to ponder it in her presence.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Simon brings him slowly to, body slack with tranquilizers and drooling, he can’t know that she’s just had her first kill. A quartet, no less. In all her training she’d never had a living target. But now she knows, she can kill him with her hands, she can kill him with her mind, and she tells him as much. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She breaks at the Maidenhead (even he is quite aware of the symbolism) and he knows suddenly what she is. The dancer’s fan drops away and he sees her whirling like maelstrom, all flowing blue dress and booted feet and hands that never come to rest. “It's me,” he growls, trying to take hold of her as he has so many times before, and realizes as her palm clamps down on his nuts that his presence might present no comfort, even in her right mind. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The rest of the crew lacks the stomach and sense to see what must be done. They think she’s a misled little girl and shudder when he tells the truth, </span>
  <em>
    <span>put a bullet to her</span>
  </em>
  <span>, like a rabid dog. It would be a kindness, he thinks as he slides open the pantry door and the wisdom slips from his tongue, “No trouble, little crazy woman.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>On Miranda, the sea of purple bellies part and the crew of Serenity is allowed to limp out over the broken bodies of Reavers, out into the wilderness of tomorrow, the future having evaporated from their minds as River slid away behind the closing bulkhead. Inara rises among them to take command, haughty and angry enough to bark out the necessary orders. She directs the wounded to the Alliance infirmary, the most grievously first. She puts a hand on River’s shoulder but doesn’t tug her along, preoccupied with following Mal’s stretcher. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jayne refuses help, watches the flow of uniforms recede, and rises only once everyone is gone. Mal named him the rear guard and he takes the position seriously. River still stands, battle axe in either hand and knees slightly bent. Her face is blank and unsettling, and it scares him more than the slain Reavers. The smell of blood is overpowering, even to him, and the freshly dead look like they might spring back to life.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With a grimace he picks his way over to the girl, the woman, who saved his life. He doesn’t resent the debt, feels that he might owe it to her plus interest--- given how many times he’s advocated for her own to be taken. Her eyes snap to him as he approaches, blank but attentive.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Stand down, soldier,” he barks.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She drops the axes but says nothing, her eyes settling on the mauled face of the last Reaver she’d cut down. His heart beats fast and he thinks she might be well and truly broken, this little warrior woman. She is Artemis, Kali, Menhit, Ishtar, Xuannü in a little body best known for playing jacks and stealing his bread and generally annoying the living shit out of him. He feels the sudden urge to do right by her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“River,” he says a little softer, her real name unfamiliar in his mouth . “It’s done.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They’re dying again, again, again, again. For the thousandth time and they remember how it feels.” She looks at him, sad and wild, fat, salty tears forming in her blank eyes. “I remember how it feels. I feel it---”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hush,” he commands.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It feels good. Good to kill, good to die.” she moans. She forms the sign of a gun and holds it to her temple. “Put a bullet to me Jayne?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not a fucking chance.” He lifts her by the armpits and gives her a shake. “After all a’ that. It don’t feel good to die an’ you know it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Held aloft, she slumps in his grip and begins to sob in earnest. Before long her tears are washing little rivulets down her grime covered cheeks and and chest, wetting the front of her blood stained dress. After a while he sets her down, slings his gun over his back, and then gathers her again in his arm like a wounded pet. “You just cry it out, </span>
  <em>
    <span>xiǎo zhànshì</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sweat, tears, and the sea,” she mutters against his chest. “The saline solution.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, yeah,” he replies. He carries her not to the Alliance ship where their friends are being put back together, but back to Serenity. He knows without asking she’d rather stay with the dead Reavers than be in another one of their exam rooms. He gets her out of her filthy clothes without looking at the body beneath them, turns on the shower and places her in the stall. She lays there, sobbing until her throat is hoarse and he sits beside the open door digging the bullet from his leg.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Jayne?” He starts at the sound of her voice. He passes her in a clean cloth and instructs her to wash up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>By the time she’s done, he’s already stitched and bandaged his own wounds. He turns off the spray and wraps her in a towel, carries her to her bunk but she begins to whimper so he goes to the crew lounge instead. He tries not to think on Wash’s body, the dead left on Haven. Just holds her without much of a plan on what should happen next. Eventually someone will come looking for them and he’ll offer no explanation. Should be plain enough what was going on. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry--” she starts after a long while, but he shushes her again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If it's for the crying or the massacre or braining him with a can of peaches he doesn’t much care. He’d give his right testicle to have back the happy patter of her bare feet on the grating, Wash’s voice on the comm, Shephard’s warm hand clapped on his shoulder. He’s dealt in death since before his voice dropped but this feels something like the last straw. She whimpers a little and he knows she’s reading him, seeing all the faces he’s claimed to have forgotten. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He squeezes her close, presses his forehead against hers and tries to think calm thoughts, knowing that she can hear them, too.  “Water under the bridge.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Connecting the dots we all know Whedon was laying down. Written prior to reading the Firefly/Serenity comics.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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